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Comment by elementalest | Hacker News Reader

I think VR will become a niche for games. Sitting/cockpit games like star citizen or elite dangerous are niches where VR will work very well. VR will be a novelty for a while, but wear off, just like the Wii. I really cant see many people wanting a standing experience for extended gameplay. Most people just want to sit on the couch/chair and play games for a few hours.

The momentum and novelty is already starting to wear off as you noted. Though i'm sure when the headsets finally release, the novelty will be rekindled for a while. I'm just not sure its going to be everything that all the hype has promised.

As for practical applications, i think for those you mentioned, augmented reality (AR) will be a much more suitable fit to those applications overall.

It really will be interesting to see how things develop.

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Do you really believe that the whole architecture sector will not use VR in a huge way? And what about learning experiences? Remote presence applications? The revival of VR is rooted in the games industry, however let's not forget that VR was never totally dead, it was alive in various non-gaming niches and their appeal will increase a lot with the availability of cheaper, better and more ergonomic hardware.

I'm not saying that VR will not be used, but that AR will be a much better technology for the industry, learning applications and general use. There will still be niches for VR, in much the same way there is now.

VR is good for simulations/games. For real world usage, AR will become an enabler. As an example, after having run simulations to learn the basics of flying a plane (using VR), you can then use AR to help you as you do the real thing. You could continue to use AR to assist in providing pertinent information while flying. The same process could be used for any kind of machinery that people must learn to use (driving for example).

AR has far more scope and relevance for applications outside of games. It is also much harder to do right than VR. I'm of the opinion that VR will pave the way for AR.

AR is interesting for applications where you're dealing with the physical reality immediately proximate to you.

I would expect that the internet has taught us nothing if not that it's much more economically efficient to enable telepresence (i.e. immersion in a remote environment) than anything which requires matter to be colocated with you.

I very much see it the other way around: AR will be huge boon in physical, need-my-hands-on matter industries (of which there are relatively few nowadays) and VR will swallow everything else.

You can also add healthcare. Huge potential there.

As someone with a good friend who is a thoracic surgeon, the applications for endoscopy/key hole surgery alone are going to be revolutionary.

Generally, anything where the "thing" you're looking at it going to be vastly superior to view in 3D than simulated 3D via a 2D screen. We've gotten decent at interpreting 2D images, but the vision portions of our brains evolved around 3D... that's a lot of wasted neurons (and where I'd assume most of the "presence" that people can't describe comes from).

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